Marshall Swearingen, MSU News Service

BOZEMAN — Universities were among the first participants in the long-distance computer network now called the internet, playing an important role in demonstrating and developing the technology in the 1970s. Now, with a $6 million research contract, Montana State University is poised to contribute to one of the internet's biggest advances since its creation.

The two-year funding from the Air Force Research Laboratory will support a team of MSU researchers as part of an international effort to develop what's called the quantum internet, which harnesses...